...... to be fed up with the amount of homework my 7YO gets?

[fedupfrida]

My Year 3 child gets what i think is a LOT of homework and it's starting to cause more and more family stress, especially at weekends.

It doesn't help that she hates doing homework and would rather be playing (which 7YO wouldn't?) but here's a list for a normal week;

Times tables,
2 or 3 pages from a Maths workbook,
10 spellings
2 (yes 2) book reviews per week,
Literacy/Science homework (usually a piece of writing, reading comp etc)
Reading every night.

How much does your Y3 child get and am i BU to be fed up of the sheer amount of time it takes and eats into our precious family time at weekends?

My DC aren't school age yet, but my colleagues tell me how much homework theirs get (they are often printing things in work) and I'm dreading it :(

Why are spellings pointless? I learned my spellings with a little book: words in the front, weekly tests in the back. What's not to like?

Never having done it myself, and being able to spell reasonably well, it seems like a complete waste of time. Very easy for teachers to set and then put all the responsibility on to parents. I think it is a perfect demonstration of Parkinson's Law! I have heard of DC getting words right in tests and then getting them wrong again in thetheir next piece of writing. Also, many spelling mistakes are contextual, so spelling random words in a test is of limited use.

^CecilyP

Well, they wouldn't. That's why they send the spellings home.^

Yes, you have absolutely confirmed what I thought! If you believed it was so important that pupils learn to spell 10 random words each week, you would do it in class. However you don't think it is important enough to waste your time on it, but you are more than happy for parents to waste theirs.

My kids school seems to have a low homework policy b to year 6, which I think is right.
So mine had 5 minutes reading, which I would often do in the morning, times tables, done walking to school, and spellings, which I spent a Max of 5 mins per day.
Not much infringement on family life, which is as it should be. One is academic, the other is not. Both ended up loving reading.

Aghast at a word spelled incorrectly?

If someone is aghast at that, they probably do need to get out a bit more!

What do you mean, I ‘think’ I’m a teacher? I know I am!

I teach English. NOT primary. Thank God!

But I am saying it worked for me.

But you can't possibly know that 'it^ worked. There is every chance that you would be a more than reasonable speller anyway. Just as you know you can spell thousands of words that never actually cropped up in a spelling test!

Sorry, I must have missed the fact I had to agree with you when I did my PGCE. You’re right. The fact that I think homework is a waste of time for primary aged children has instantaneously rendered my teaching qualification null and void. I’ll call the school and tell them I won’t be in tomorrow right now.

I honestly believe some parents who post here saying they don't let their children learn their spellings because it is a waste of time would be horrified - aghast - if they looked at how many words in our language are spelled incorrectly by GCSE students. Bright students, hundreds of them, who simply can't spell. Something is going very wrong somewhere.

Well, seeing learning spellings in primary school seems to be a thing these days (yes, even my old PS is doing it; it's on their website)it doesn't seem to be working!

I think it’s you who can’t read, actually, pengggwn, given that I haven’t said that and nor is it a reasonable inference from any post I have made. Let me know if I can help further with comprehension of my posts.

That isn't what I am saying. I don't think it is a waste of the parent's time.

I think that deserves the Mandy Rice Davies response!

I'm in two minds - my child gets 2 or 3 a4 sheets a day - so a handwriting list and a page or two of maths or grammar, plus a book report at the weekend (he doesn't have books every day because his reading is good, he has the handwriting instead because his writing is poor) - it takes him 10 to 20 minutes (unnassisted). I don't mind it actually, he gets in from school, has a snack, then sits down and does it before having the rest of the evening off.

I think it's instilling good study habits (previously he'd do it after breakfast, but it was just getting us all angry with each other, so by mutual agreement he does it in the evening instead), it's not particularly arduous, lets me keep up with the sort of things he's doing at school.

In a different school, I wasn't as impressed - the work sent home often seemed to be too hard for him to do alone, or need a lot of props from me - I think this school has got it bang on, both in volume and complexity.